24 BUILD REPORT:
The Quest for a Different
Kind of Flipper:
Building the Beast

by Zac O’Donnell

27 National Robotics League
Begins Their 6th Year of
Combat Competition

by Kevin M. Berry

29 EVENT REPORT:
Robot HORDs Return
to The Gate

by Chris Olin

32 CARTOON

32 Robot Combat Gets
Savage at HORD 2013

by Tiffany E. Clegg
In a recent issue of SERVO, I wrote about scaling up
my successful six pound
Mantisweight class flipper
Threecoil into a 30 pound
Sportsman class robot. The initial
designs that emulated the flipper
geometry ended up being too
heavy, so I switched to a
different style of flipper built on
top of the same flywheel, clutch,
and trigger mechanism concept
that had proven itself in
Threecoil. Once the design of the
robot was finalized (Figure 1),
I started building
part orders and
a plan to create
the machine.

The first
shipment
contained
materials for
the baseplate of
the robot, so I
wasted no time
in printing out
the design and
taping it down to the two
foot square aluminum sheet
(Figure 2). After I finished the
baseplate, I moved on to a
test-fit of the unfinished weapon
rails, flipper head, and flywheel
that were made by a local shop
(Figure 3).

I decided to follow that up
with the other pieces of internal
framing and mounts (Figure 4).

Once the simple parts were
done, I moved on to the finer
details of the flipper assembly.

I started by finishing the coil

BUILD REPORT:

● by Zac O’Donnell

Go to www.servomagazine.com/
index.php?/magazine/article/october

2013_CombatZone for any additional
files and/or downloads associated
with this article. You can also post
comments.

The Quest for a Different Kind of
Flipper: Building the Beast

24 SERVO 10.2013

Figure 1. Finished design.

Last month, Zach Witeof was listed as the
writer of the Product Review on the
Botbitz 30A ESC. However, it was
actually Pete Smith who wrote it. I blew it
and apologize to Pete. Kevin Berry